Thwarted Dreams -- Chapter 6

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Colonel Lydecker, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Caroline, etc.).

Two months later...

Caroline stepped nervously out of the taxi. She paid the driver and stared up at the building that she had been dropped off in front of, playing with a lock of her brown hair as she did so. It looked like any of the other buildings in the industrial park area of Casper, Wyoming. There was nothing special or obviously imposing about it, but that didn’t do anything to calm the butterflies in her stomach.

“Come on, Caroline, you’re a big girl. You can do this,” she muttered to herself. She laughed nervously and then walked inside of the building and up to the woman at the front desk. “Hi, I’m Caroline Robinson. I’m here to make a donation.”

“Oh yes, Ms. Robinson,” the receptionist said cheerfully. “Go right down the hall and to the first door on the right and then through that door into the waiting room. You’re early and they almost always run late, so it might be awhile before you’re called in. You know how doctors are.”

“Yeah, I do,” Caroline said. “Thank you.” She walked over to the door that the receptionist had indicated and into a waiting room. It looked like any other doctor’s waiting room that Caroline had ever been in, which only vaguely settled her nerves. She looked over and saw a young man who looked vaguely familiar to her sitting in a chair reading a magazine. Caroline shrugged, walked over to the man, and sat down next to him. “Hi. Are you making some kind of donation too?”

“Yeah, I’m donating sperm,” he said. He grinned. “I get the fun part.”

Caroline laughed. “Lucky you. I’m donating some eggs. Hello, local anesthesia.”

“Yeah, lucky you indeed,” the man said. He held out his hand. “I’m Dennis Murphy. Do I know you? You look kind of familiar to me.”

“I’m Caroline Robinson,” Caroline said. “You look familiar to me too…oh wait, I know it now! You go to West Point. I think I’ve seen you around.”

“Robinson…you’re Pete Robinson’s sister?” Dennis asked. Caroline nodded and Dennis grinned. “We played on the football team together for two years until he graduated. He mentioned that he had a younger sister and I think I’ve seen you around campus before. I think I just missed by a year or so playing on the team with your oldest brother. His name is Chris, right? How are your brothers, by the way?”

“Pete’s good. He’s in North Carolina,” Caroline told him. “My other brother, Danny, is in Virginia.” She looked down for a moment. “Chris died back in January.”

“I’m sorry,” Dennis said. His grey eyes were filled with sympathy.

“Thank you,” Caroline said. She smiled. “I’ve heard your name mentioned before around campus before, too. You’re the golden standard to all of us freshmen. My professor for my early military history class raves about you.”

“Wow. I can’t believe that they still talk about me,” Dennis commented. “I’m being serious. I know I’m a good student, but I didn’t think that I was that good.”

“Believe it. Apparently, you are that good,” Caroline said.

“Either that or most of the current freshman class sucks,” Dennis deadpanned.

Caroline smirked. “Myself being the exception, of course?”

“Of course,” Dennis said.

“Are you nervous about this at all?” Caroline asked. “I am. I hate having doctor’s office nerves.”

“I’m a little nervous,” Dennis admitted. “My contribution to this deal doesn’t involve me having any kind of anesthetic or whatever but I think it is the whole doctor’s office type of nerves.” He shrugged. “Your part is safe for you, right?”

“That’s what I’ve been assured,” Caroline said. “They give me some kind of local anesthetic, take a long needle or something, and suck out a few eggs. I don’t know how many they’ll take, though I was told it’d be somewhere between four and six. Lucky you. You get a plastic cup and a porno and that’s it.”

Dennis laughed. “Yeah. I hope they got a good selection. I’m picky when it comes to my pornography.”

“Pervert,” Caroline teased. They both laughed.

“Listen, will you need a ride back to whichever motel you’re staying at?” Dennis asked. “I rented a car so I can give you a ride.”

“Yeah, I’ll need a ride,” Caroline said. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Dennis said.

A door opened and a nurse stuck her head in the room. “Ms. Robinson? They’re ready for you.”

Caroline took a deep breath and gave Dennis’ hand a squeeze. “Wish me luck in there.”

“Good luck,” Dennis said.

“Thanks,” Caroline said. She got up and followed the nurse out of the waiting room.

Dennis sat in the same chair that evening, reading the same magazine that he’d been reading before, when Caroline was helped into the waiting room by another nurse. He got up and grinned. “There you are.”

“Yeah, they wanted me to rest for a few hours,” Caroline said. She looked at Dennis skeptically. “You weren’t sitting there reading the same magazine for hours on end, were you?”

“No, I wasn’t,” Dennis assured her. “My deal didn’t take too long, so I went out and hung around town until I came to pick you up. I’ve got to pick up my check, too. Are you ready?”

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Caroline said.

“The office is right across the hall,” the nurse said. “Your checks are ready and waiting for you. Are you sure that you’re okay, Ms. Robinson?”

“I’m fine,” Caroline insisted. “You guys made sure of that already, didn’t you?”

“We did, but it’s force of habit,” the nurse said. “Take care, both of you.”

“We will,” Dennis said. He and Caroline left the waiting room and went across the hall and knocked on the door. “We’re here to pick up our checks. The nurse said that they were ready for us.”

“Yes, come on in,” a voice instructed them. Dennis opened the door and he and Caroline went inside the office. A man in a white lab coat sat behind a desk. “Mr. Murphy and Ms. Robinson. I believe these are for you.” He handed Dennis and Caroline each a check. “Let me both thank you again for your contributions.”

“It was our pleasure,” Caroline said. She looked down at the check in her hand and got an uneasy feeling, though she didn’t let it show on her face.

“Thank you,” Dennis said. He and Caroline said good-bye to the man and they left the building and went over to where Dennis had parked his rental car and got in and drove off.

Caroline slowly opened the check and stared at it. Twenty-five thousand dollars, just like Lydecker had promised her. It still didn’t erase the uneasy feeling that she had. In fact, it only made it worse. “Damn.”

“What is it?” Dennis asked. “Are you okay, Caroline?”

“I’m fine physically,” Caroline said. “I just got a really bad feeling about this whole thing. I know, why couldn’t I have gotten this feeling earlier before I made my donation so I could have backed out of it, but I got it now and damn, it really sucks. I don’t know why but I feel so apprehensive right now that…why were we the only ones in the waiting room? Okay, I can kind of understand why I was the only female in the waiting room because my procedure was more time-intensive than yours, but shouldn’t there at least have been other men in the room with us waiting to make donations? Hell, why did they have you make the donation there? Even here in Wyoming, there should be a sperm bank around somewhere. Couldn’t they have you make your donation there and then have it transported over here? I don’t know, something about this whole thing feels really off.”

Dennis was quiet as he thought about it. “You might be right about it,” he admitted. “In fact, I think that you are right about it. I don’t know what to think.” He pulled into the parking lot of the motel. “Here we are. I’m staying here too, though I’ll be flying back out to New York tomorrow after lunch. We should have breakfast together or something and we’ll see each other around campus when you get back.”

“Absolutely,” Caroline said. “You’re a good guy, Dennis. We’ll be good friends.”

Dennis parked the car and they got out and went inside and sat down in front of the fireplace in the lobby. “Man, I wish we could go back and take back what we gave, but that’s impossible.”

Caroline nodded and looked down at the check in her hand and smiled. “We can still do something.” She looked at Dennis, who also smiled and nodded and they tossed their checks in the fire and watched them burn to ashes. “Don’t you love a good fire?”

“Yeah,” Dennis agreed. “There’s nothing like a nice fire to cheer you up.”

TBC